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Friday, May 30, 2008

Bedtime stories

I don't keep up with a lot of news these days, but I do at least try to read the headlines in google news occasionally. Today, I came across an article about bedtime stories. A survey has shown that more people reach for funny books like Roald Dahl or Dr Seuss as opposed to classics like Beatrix Potter.

The Telegraph article also mentions that only 49% of parents surveyed read to their children every day and that 1 in 10 skipped pages to get to the end quicker. What a sad statistic, don't you think?

Children's literacy must be a hot topic at the moment, because I also found this article discussing the link between singing and learning to read and also this article, which was quite amusing, also about the bedtime story. It brings up the Children's Laureate, a Reading Aloud Week and a book published called Great Books to Read Aloud.

As much as I may complain when N reads I Forgot to Say I Love You at Oldest's bedtime, when he gives Mrs Brown a strong Scottish accent and Billy a Scouse accent it gives the story more depth and makes it a little more interesting. And it still makes me giggle a bit when he rolls his Rs so dramatically. And yes, I am guilty of skipping pages occasionally and yes, Oldest goes through phases of being uninterested in story-time during the day, but our bedtime routine is one of the things I look forward to during the day. N and Oldest and I (and Littlest, when he's awake) all together, reading stories. Trying to make Oldest giggle. Our bedtime routine has stretched from one story a night to four. An sometimes a song (Wheels on the Bus or Cows in the Kitchen). We go the library once a week to pick out more books for bedtime, as our enormous collection of picture books gets old quickly. I hope I'm doing enough for Oldest and that he'll always love to read.

Here are Oldest's favourite stories to read at bedtime:

Night Monkey Day Monkey by Julia DonaldsonThis is the Bear and the Scary Night by Sarah HayesI Forgot to Say I Love you by Miriam MossThe Noisy Way to Bed by Ian WhybrowHow Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night? by Jane YolenOne Ted Falls Out of Bed by Julia Donaldson

It's funny because I'm sure I have at least a hundred children's books from which my daughter can pick out but lately she'd rather read the same books: Just Going to the Dentist and Just Go To Bed, by Mercer Mayer which she has pretty much memorized, and one in French, Ma Nouvelle Ecole. Tonight, she even threw in another one of her favorites, Madeline. My favorites are by Robert Munsch because I love adding sound effects and different voices but unfortunately she keeps passing over these. I shall have to look in the library to find the books you mentioned.

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I've been running my book blog, Fluttering Butterflies, for the past (nearly) 9 years and have recently taken up booktubing on my own channel, cloveryness, as well as collaboratively with the Bookish Brits.